Eureka Singlis UL Sleeping Pad - Inflatable

This pad came with two separate and glaring defects. First plastic valve seat is attached to the bag canvas with glue (which is fine), but this bag was not glued properly, and there was literally no glue in three separate places on the seat, each a giant leak, so bad the bag could not be inflated the first place. Second, the pad also came with a bad brass valve twist closure valve. These press into the plastic valve seat, but the valve in this pad did not close. (Not a matter of twisting it enough.) Removal of the valve showed that it either lack a clean brass-to-brass closing surface, or it was entirely lacking the internal rubber oring that the two pieces of brass close on when twisted shut to close off the valve. Bottom line, the valve did not hold air, so neither did the pad. Both canvas to plastic seat gluing, and the brass valve defect were so severe that this pad/bag never ever held air. And that would have been obvious if this bag got even a cursory test in the factory. Pads are usually tested before valve insertion, and then again after. This pad could not have even passed the pre-valve test (because of the glue job), and it could not pass a post-valve test because of the bad valve. Totally ripped off by Eureka! and / or Sierra Trading Post. Either Eureka! sells bad products to retailers, or else STP sold a BAD, BAD, BAD second as a new 1st run bag. Either way, I am out $40 and got the privilege of sleeping on the ground and cutting short a trip thanks to this inferior product caused by bad testing from Eureka!, e.g. Johnson Camping gear. I am sad to say I will never be buying another Eureka! anything ever again. Companies that have no quality control do not have any control on anything they make, and clearly Eureka! thinks their end customers should be the quality control department for them. Sierra let me down by stocking such an inferior product and selling it to me.

It is light. I found it comfortable to sleep on. Filling it up with air however is not so great. It was noisy to sleep on, movement noises reverberated in the air tubes like an echo chamber and amplified sound. The hand operated memory foam inflation system was so-so. It moved air reasonably well with two hands, but was not operable with one hand and I was not successful with foot either. However, the design of the pad's chamber ends (the only point that air can move from chamber to chamber) was too "tight", and with natural folds, this was a huge resistance factor in moving air from the tube the pump chamber is located in, to other tubes. Sometimes you really had to push hard (too hard) to move air over. Inflation by mouth (which I did once) is not recommended at all. It fills easily that way. But in the morning, you can see all the condensation water inside the bag from your wet breath. Leave that in there for very long and the pad will rot. The best way to fill this bag, and others like it (but most others are easier to inflate) is to use a Themarest mini-pump battery operated filler (it 2.5 ounces). Those are $20-25, but worth it. I did not find the main brass valve to be high quality. It was brass threaded, plastic capped. The brass was to soft, and had two clear thread grabs (one wrong, one right). The wrong one leaked because the thread was only 1/2 way to full. The right one worked fine, but involved a second tightening. Ensuring the valve was properly closed involved far more work each time than should be necessary if the quality was better (but it did hold air), and it will probably last longer than a pure plastic valve seen on some other pads.

If you're not in a hammock or don't want to be a "Bear Burrito", what ever your reason for not hanging from a tree at night... This is the answer. It has a pump built into it through a brilliant design involving memory foam and a bi-valve. It packs into a tiny little ball about the size of a 20oz bottle. The foam "self inflating" pads that are, as they say, 1" thick are like sleeping on the ground compared to this which is in the 2.75" thick range.

Great for summer. Lightweight and compact, it is not insulated.